Floating Back
by Kitsa
Summary: Sequel to The Space Between. Tag for "Adrift". What happened after Gwen left? J/I Reviews appreciated
1. Chapter 1

Floating Back

Floating Back

Jack slunk back to his desk and his empty office. The hub was eerily quiet, even Myfanwy hiding in her cave up near the roof. Everyone had scarpered almost fleeing at Jack's curt nod after Gwen came in, her face stricken and her mouth a tight slit that said she didn't want to talk about it. He cast a tired look at the paperwork waiting on his desk and seriously contemplated a drink or five. Why did she have to be so stubborn? Knowing the truth hadn't made anyone happier. If Gwen had one failing it was her belief that the truth would always make it all better. Bitterly, Jack knew that was not always the case. People needed their dreams, their illusions.

The alarm of the cog door startled him out of his thoughts as he slammed to alert and back to rest like a ricochet. He would recognize the familiar form of Ianto Jones under any circumstances. That was another thing he would need to deal with. Gwen hadn't said how she found out about the Island but he could guess. Only one person knew besides him, Ianto. He should have seen it, the younger man had argued for telling her, if only because she had stepped in as his de facto second in command during his little sabbatical with the Doctor.

While he was gone, Ianto had seen to their needs and supplies, and monitored the situation alone, keeping faith with his errant Captain. The loyalty of it had almost broken Jack when he found out, even when there was no real reason. He had not exactly done his best by his young lover and he knew it, that was why he was so determined to do things right this time. Fortunately the Rift had kindly refrained from returning any of its refugees so Ianto have been spared the journey, one that if he had his way, the younger man would never have to make. He glanced up, wondering where his lover was and why he hadn't come over. _Perhaps he has decided you want to be alone_, he thought. _Or he is avoiding you, figuring you aren't happy with him_.

"Coffee, Sir?" The object of his thoughts popped in the door almost as if he had been conjured.

"I thought we had talked about the sir?" he replied, still sorting out his thoughts. He wasn't happy but he was not willing to take that much of a backward step, regardless.

"Thought after today I might have had that privilege revoked." The words were deadpan, but Jack knew him well, well enough to see just a glimmer behind the façade. Jack nodded, not sure what he could or would say but before he could put thoughts together, Ianto was out the door again.

It was only moments before the office door was pushed open, and Ianto slipped in with two mugs. He hadn't bothered with the tray, and for some reason that made Jack happier than he had been. It was a little bit of casual that Ianto usually reserved for just the two of them, a sign that maybe this would not be as bad as he thought it was. Because Ianto was right, he was upset, feeling a little raw and betrayed, whether it was right or not.

Loyalty was such a touchy and painful subject; their betrayal of him, his of them when he ran to the Doctor. Granted, if he had though of it, when he thought of it, he hadn't expected the situation as it had been. He expected to step through the doors, be welcomed or not, find out what he had done wrong, what he had done to get left. At no point had he pictured the end of the universe or a year spent in pain, chains and death. Certainly he never thought that Rose, their wonderful Rose would be the cause, or that the Doctor would be so damaged, damaged enough to chain himself to a madman not to be alone, to no longer be the last of his kind.

Of course he expected to come back almost immediately, to be back with his team, his family and the most important of all, his lover, his faithful Ianto. A year of pain and dying and when he could spare a thought it was of getting back and making things right. There was something about repeated torture that made everyday things all the more special. The Doctor and that part of his life would always be special to him but he couldn't go back, only forward, make something new for himself.

"Sir…Jack?" the quiet voice cut through all the noise going on in his head. He could hear the concern in his lover's voice as he got dragged back to the problem at hand. Ianto had moved around the desk and placed his coffee next to him while he was distracted. Now as he looked the young man moved away. Jack wanted to reach out for him, to pull him close and forget everything else, but that would come later. Talk first, that was something else he was learning.

Ianto had set the coffee next to Jack and moved around the desk as quickly as he could. It wasn't that he was afraid of Jack, nor was he ashamed of what he had done. He wasn't going to apologize for giving Gwen the information she needed. That did not make him feel any less guilty though. No matter how much he told himself it was for the best, and that she never would have given up, still he had betrayed Jack's trust, again. Ianto wasn't sure whether his Captain could take more betrayal, or that their relationship could either. Still, something about the look on Jack's face, and the familiar admonition had given him hope.

Since he had returned Jack had been different, more committed both to the team and to him. It had not been easy though. The older man still had his moods, some of them as dark as midnight in a well and there was still so much he was reluctant to share. Ianto was learning how to deal with those moods, and in return, Jack was opening up to him some, slowly. At least he had been.

"Why?"

"Why what?" Jack gave question for question, trying out of reflex to deflect an actual answer. But Ianto wasn't Gwen and he wouldn't be so easily put off. Rather than play the game, the young man merely sat across from his desk, quiet, waiting for his answers.

Jack looked anywhere, everywhere, fiddli8ng with odd bits on his desk, even flipping through some paperwork he was trying to avoid but he kept coming back to light on the still and beautiful man, drinking coffee and waiting. "It's not easy, you wouldn't under…"

"I'd like to try, if you let me. Come on Jack, I think we're rather past the place where you try to hold it all yourself, aren't we?"

"It's my duty, my penance."

"Penance for what? You have saved the world more times than I can think of, what more can you do? What more do you think you need to do?" Ianto leaned forward in his chair, wanting to go to the man he could see burning with pain so close and yet so far away.


	2. Chapter 2

Floating Back

Jack allowed his eyes to wander around the office, stopping at the bits and pieces he had accumulated over more than a lifetime, taking in Ianto sitting patiently among it all, just drinking coffee. The young man deserved answers though he would never ask for them. For a long time Jack had taken advantage of that and of him. Now he couldn't, he just couldn't start rebuilding the wall that they had spend so much time tearing down since his return. It was all coming back, all those lives destroyed and the pain that he had been unable to do enough.

"Do you know how long I have been at Torchwood?" he asked. It was mostly a rhetorical question. His records, the real ones, he had personally changed or erased in the computer when he had taken over and as to the paper files, he was fairly sure they had been destroyed, or possibly buried somewhere in one of the many dark, dank holes in the archives.

"Not with any degree of accuracy, no." Ianto's expression was almost deadpan. "Though if you really want to hid things around here, you should remember that I handle the archives. Though I must say they are not in the best of shape. Besides, Jack, I know everything." Ianto was trying to lighten the mood and he appreciated it. He even smiled, though it was pure reflex. His eyes, they were on another place, and another time.

"When I first came here, a long time ago, another life even…" he paused, as he tried to find the words as the other man just sat and watched him. "They didn't even understand it, no one noticed if someone went missing, how would they? The people who came back, who were changed, they treated them like any other alien. I thought…I don't know what I thought. I didn't exactly come to Torchwood voluntarily. They offered me a choice and I wasn't strong enough to resist." Jack paused and reached for his coffee with a grim expression.

Ianto could sense the kind of night this was going to be. Rising from his chair, he went to the side table and poured two glasses of Jack's best whiskey. He put one on the desk in front of the older man and pulled his chair around, closer to Jack, but not too close. He did not want him to feel closed in. As he set himself down he could see the look of gratitude that reassured him he had done right.

For a moment they sat and drank, then Jack started again. "I came to Cardiff to find the Doctor. Instead, Torchwood found me. You thought Yvonne was bad, but Alice could have given her a run for her money, all God, Queen and Empire, trying to make up for the fact that there was no place for her in that world. She and the others, they had no chance, there was no real life to hold on to. Back then all of them were locked in a world that loathed them for not fitting, all about status and stuck in limbo."

"They asked you to work for them," Ianto said, trying to fill in the blanks so that Jack could finish.

"They offered me a choice, work for Torchwood and earn some money to keep myself going until the Doctor came, or get locked away in the vaults, until they could figure out what I was."

The revelation shocked him, though after Canary Wharf, it shouldn't have done. Torchwood inspired both the good and the obsessive and considering what Jack had said, and what he had put together himself, that had been a long time ago, attitudes were different. "Jack…"he started, but he was waved off.

"My first mission, I was tracking of those creatures that you guys called blowfish, just a teenager, really. When I brought him in they shot him, just like that, for nothing but being alien. I walked away but there was no place to go. I was told…that doesn't matter, besides, I thought perhaps I could do something, maybe make a change."

"And you have," Ianto said, quietly, laying a hand on the older man's arm.

"Not enough, not fast enough. When they finally figured out who and what these people were, they kept them in the vaults with varying degrees of care and compassion and a lot of contempt. Outside there was nothing for them, most were non-functioning and if we had put them somewhere it would have been an institution. Even the cells were better, at least back then. Over the years there have been a few that could be ret conned and given new lives, even one that could return to her old life, but it isn't enough, not nearly enough." He paused to drain his glass and Ianto refilled it, bringing the decanter with him. It was that kind of night.

"Hearing Jonah scream, it brings it all back. Every one of them, all the ones I couldn't save, all the once that can't be saved. There is nothing…" And at that moment, Jack broke.

Ianto couldn't believe the depths of pain he saw in the eyes of his lover. He reached out for the older man, pulling him into his arms. He knew there was nothing he could do to change things, all he could do was be there, and let Jack know he was no longer alone, that the burden did not have to be carried by himself.

It was later, as the two lay entangled in the hole in the ground that served as the Captain's home, Jack caressed the side of his lover's face. The pain had passed, for the moment leaving him tired and a bit sad. "Promise me something, Ianto?"

"If it is in my power," the younger man said, voice drowsy.

"Promise me you will never go there," he whispered in the dark.

"Jack, I…"

"Promise me," Jack repeated more urgently this time.

"But why?"

"Because I need you to be removed from it, I need you to be able to keep myself sane, to loose myself with you. You have seen too much, don't let me poison you anymore than I have. Please?"

"Jack, you can't protect me from all the pain that comes with this job."

"Not completely, but let me do what I can. No matter how many times I have to go out there, let me be able to float back to you." In the dark, Ianto tightened his hold on the man who had saved him when he needed saving, and knew that he didn't need to answer.


End file.
